It has been a miserable start to the season for Aberdeen supporters, with the early weeks already suggesting that another crisis could be developing at Pittodrie.
The Dons are 10th in the table after collecting just one victory from their first five matches. Frustration boiled over last weekend when the home crowd booed the team off following a flat 0-0 draw with Kilmarnock.
Aberdeen have scored fewer goals than any other side in the league, finding the net only twice. Both goals came during their 2-1 opening-day win over Hearts.
They have still not scored from open play, while four consecutive matches have passed without a goal. That record is a stark contrast to the “fast, attacking football” Stephen Robinson promised when he took charge in March.
Robinson is now facing intense pressure from the Aberdeen support, with many fans having questioned his appointment from the beginning.
The football on display has offered little to inspire them. Aberdeen appear to lack a clear identity, attacking intensity, purpose or any obvious sense of ambition.
Stephen Robinson has made a series of unconvincing excuses for Aberdeen’s poor start to the season
However, what may be damaging Robinson’s standing most severely is not simply the team’s poor form, but the increasingly unconvincing explanations he has offered in interviews.
Following the goalless draw with Kilmarnock, Robinson appeared to point to Aberdeen’s trip to Glasgow to play Celtic a few days earlier as a major reason for the lifeless display.
“We looked tired, we looked lethargic,” Robinson said. “We’ve had two very hard games, a lot of travel. We got a little bit more energy in the second half, without the quality.
“We got out of the game what we deserve. It’s frustrating. We made tired decisions, too many touches on the ball, too many passes backwards.
“We’ve had two games against Rangers and Celtic, a lot of travel, and the performance looked like that. We ran out of energy. They looked jaded today.”
What utter nonsense. That’s nothing more than a cop-out from a manager already looking like he could be the latest to be chewed up and spat out by this relentless cycle of failure at Pittodrie.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Rangers game to which Robinson referred was at home. The only travel was a bus journey to Glasgow and back, hardly cause for jet-lag or exhaustion.
Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack has hired six permanent bosses in seven years at Pittodrie
Since the start of August, Aberdeen have played six matches in total in all competitions, four of which have been at home.
Their two away matches have come against Dundee and Celtic, neither of which even require the sat-nav to be switched on, yet the manager is making it sound like they’ve travelled to some far-flung corners of the globe.
Only a month into the new season, players should be fresh and raring to go. Excuses like this just won’t wash.
You can’t pull the wool over the fans’ eyes. They know what they are watching every week – and right now it’s not even close to being good enough.
None of this is to say that Robinson is entirely to blame. Far from it, in fact. As a club, Aberdeen have been on the slide for years.
The Scottish Cup win 18 months ago was a total anomaly. The fact that Robinson was the club’s sixth permanent managerial appointment in seven under the Dave Cormack regime is evidence of that.
Under Cormack, Aberdeen have lurched from one disaster to another. Their record of appointing managers has, in his own words, become a source of ‘embarrassment’.
In what was a major summer rebuild, Aberdeen signed 14 players, with another 16 leaving the club. The scale of the upheaval would inevitably lead to the squad needing time to gel at the start of the new campaign.
Sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel doesn’t appear to have had a major positive influence yet
But, on the evidence of what they have produced so far, there is precious little evidence that this is going to get better any time soon.
Robinson is under major pressure but he shouldn’t be the only one feeling the heat. When a club becomes stuck in an endless cycle of failure, accountability must go all the way to the top.
No one doubts the level of investment Cormack has made in Aberdeen in terms of the club and the wider infrastructure around the place. But the fact he has spent years writing cheques whilst also sacking managers every five minutes is not evidence of a sound plan.
The club’s chief executive, Alan Burrows, knew Robinson from their time together at Motherwell, something which paved the way for the appointment after a botched recruitment search.
A recruitment search, let’s not forget, which saw Cormack publicly name-check another candidate, Sandro Schwarz, only to be turned down.
A recruitment search which was supposed to lean on sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel’s global contacts book, only to finish up in Paisley after months of dithering.
So, whilst Robinson may be taking the brunt of it from fans just now, nobody should be naive enough to pin the blame square on him. He is merely a symptom of the wider problems at Aberdeen.
Intended to be a safe and sensible appointment, someone who knew Scottish football and could bring stability, he is surely the last roll of the dice for Burrows and Cormack.
Dons chief executive Alan Burrows previously worked with Robinson at Motherwell
Aberdeen supporters are not in the mood for any more excuses. The promise of jam tomorrow just won’t wash any longer.
Robinson was sold as the stabilising choice after the club finally got their finger out and found a replacement for Jimmy Thelin. If he cannot steady the ship, the blame will not stop solely with him.
That is the reality Cormack and Burrows now face. Robinson is their last credible roll of the dice. The support has absorbed manager after manager, failure after failure.
It will not absorb another botched project while the same people remain in charge, people who have created a culture of failure, and of endless chaos and mediocrity.
It is now three-and-a-half years since Burrows arrived as chief executive. In his three full seasons so far, the club have finished seventh, fifth and ninth in the league.
Robinson still has time to turn it around. Aberdeen will face Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Saturday night in the quarter-finals of the Premier Sports Cup.
If they can win that and secure a semi-final date at Hampden, it could yet be the spark needed to inject some momentum into their season. But if they were to lose, Robinson could well be past the point of no return.
The real question is not whether he is good enough to be the manager of Aberdeen. The real question is whether Cormack, Burrows and Pfannenstiel have run out of road.
